The film fuzzed out, finally clicking to an end. The screen on the television set shone a bright blue as the VCR automatically began to rewind.

I had been numbed to the last several hours of Chapter Black, not really seeing any of it. I sat, chained to the chair with bloodshot eyes, my ears ringing with the tortured screams that I had sat through. I had blacked out in the middle of it, but the chair had held me in place. When I`d awakened to the still playing footage, I gagged and retched all over myself.

Dried vomit clung to my legs, hair matted to my face. I may have even pissed myself. I hardly knew how many hours I had been sitting there. My entire body ached,.

I didn`t expect anyone to be searching for me, not after that. I was lucky enough to be chained to a chair and not hung by my hair over a pool of hungry cannibals as it had been portrayed in one of the scenes.

"I see you`ve finished."

Shinobu stepped forward and pressed the button on the front of the television set. Tall, tan, with an innocent enough face. His eyes looked colder than I had always remembered them to be.

"Now do you see what we`re protecting?" He faced me, his posture holding onto a hardness, as if it were physically bearing the massive chip on his shoulder.

I couldn`t reply, my mouth was too dry to verbalize anything in that moment. I wanted to puke again, but my stomach was empty.

"Ume, listen to me," He lifted my chin with a long, tan finger, and I looked up at him, exhaustion weighing down on my eyelids, though I knew I wouldn`t sleep for a long time.

"We`ve been fighting the wrong battle this entire time. Help me set things right."

I felt liquid leak out of my eyes, I could cry again. Tears spilled from my face, and I couldn`t seem to catch my breath as I began to sob so hard that my entire began to shake violently. I couldn`t erase the images that the film had burned into my brain.

"Your Prince has been lying to you," His lips were close to my ear, words burning through the screams that were set on repeat inside my mind.

"Itsuki and I will set it right. We could use your help."

"Eh.." I tried to choke the words, but ended up coughing and choking on my dry tongue. My throat felt like sand paper, stretching down to the burning depths where my stomach was being scorched with acid.

My head was lifted again, and something cool was poured down my throat. Immediately I assumed it was poison or blood. One of the more horrifying scenes of the film showed humans forcing demon women to drink their children`s blood.

I spit it out, shrieking at the memory.

"Easy, Kimura. It`s water."

"Never!" I choked, "I will never help you!" I was still in hysterics,

"Just leave me alone! Get that fucking tape away from me!"

"She`ll come around, Shinobu," Another voice was in the abandoned shed with us. There was at least a full minute of silence, filled with only the noise of my lungs trying to catch a breath.

"You know where to find me when you change your mind." His last words to me. The shackles holding me to the chair were released, and I slid to the floor, curled into a ball as I listened to the tape being ejected from the player, and their footfalls growing softer as they left me alone.

I was conflicted. What had we been fighting for? What good was there in humanity, really? We were all selfish, greedy little pricks. We took more than we needed, and we destroyed beautiful things every day.

I stared at the wall of the shed for a long time, feeling some of my brain cells dying off, one by one. Every blink portrayed another victim, not only the ones from the tape, but of the demons I had killed myself.

Get a hold of yourself, something screamed from inside of me.

Need to find Koenma, tell him what Shinobu`s done. Get my head on straight.

Sunlight sifted through the wooden boards, it was still daylight out. I could still find my way if I could just make myself get up.

I managed to stand on shaky legs, still dry heaving for air. I was sticky, and in desperate need of a shower. I used the wall to support myself as I tried to reach for the door.

It pushed open easily, swinging on its hinges. Sensui hadn`t bothered to bolt me in after I had finished watching his filthy documentary.

The sunlight was blinding, drenching me in its warmth. It was a hot, summer day, and though the shed had been shaded, it was stuffy and a thousand degrees warmer inside. I wanted to lie in the grass, to soak the sunlight just to see if it would make the turmoil and darkness that had been planted inside my head go away.

I only needed to lie there for a moment, just needed to compose myself. The grass was inviting, and I was far from civilization.

Sleep captivated me, though I dreamt of nothing but horrors that my own mind had begun to invent all on its own. My soul had been tainted, mind poisoned forever.

cradle robbers;
born to die - i

I've lived a lot of different lives, been different people many times.
I live my life in bitterness and fill my heart with emptiness.

I would never forget that dream.

I was in an amusement park, and there were all of these rides. There were humans standing on the ground, in control of the rides, but there were only demons riding them.

I noticed that all of the rides ended in painful deaths. The rollercoasters were colliding into each other, ending in explosions or reeling into a pit of spikes. Fun houses turned into giant ovens, swings crashing into each other at full force. Limbs of demons flying down onto the crowds of cocky humans, laughing and jeering from the ground.

It wasn`t an amusement park, but a death camp. It was genocide. And we were the Nazis.

I kept screaming and crying out until Sensui found me among the crowds, and dragged me out of those crowds and onto the Ferris wheel. We rode all the way to the top and the wheel stopped. It was just Shinobu and I, watching all of the torment from the highest point.

"This is what we really are," He told me, "We`re the only ones capable of stopping this."

"Make it stop!"

My eyes were open, and I was staring up at a strange man. I was shaking, always thrown after I`d blacked out.

"Who are you? I don`t know who you are!" I started shouting and shoving my palms against the foreigner.

"Ume, get a hold of yourself!"

He grabbed onto my wrists.

I started shrieking, feeling my body trying to reject my empty stomach. The pain was unlike any battle wound I`d endured in my short years of working as a Spirit Detective.

"Ogre, get some food!" He shouted over my struggling body. I was weak, finding it hard to tap into my spirit energy.

Which, I guess was a good thing. It`d be a shame if I`d killed my own boss.

"Koenma!" I shouted, finally matching his face to memory, and shooting up in the bed I was lying in. I had been cleaned off, and no longer smelled like a penguin house. Someone had pulled my hair into a bun, and changed me into a white gown.

"Shinobu! He has Chapter Black!" I started in on the situation. He held up a hand, his usual seriousness gracing his adult form`s featured.

"I`m aware, Ume. You should lie down."

When I only stared at him, he wrapped his pale fingers around my shoulder and lightly pushed me back down onto the pillows. I watched him warily, finding myself to be extremely jumpy after watching the documentary.

"You were lying in that field for a little over twenty four hours before we found you."

Jorge, the aforementioned ogre, returned with some graham crackers and orange juice, which I ate slowly.

Koenma watched in silence for a few moments, allowing me to swallow a few bites of food before asking the dreaded question,

"Did you watch that tape?"

He knew the answer, only asking in case there was any hope at all that I hadn`t.

"Yes and the rumors are true," I said bitterly, "I`m disgusted by my own race."

"It`s true, Chapter Black has the sort of power to turn any human against his own race. Sorry to say, Shinobu has been… resigned from his post."

"That`s it?!" I snapped, "Is no one hunting his ass down?"

"Let it go, Ume, it`d be a lost cause. He`s disappeared."

I groaned and buried my face in my hands, "I`ll do it myself."

"No, you will not," His voice harsh, I felt the bed shift as he stood.
"My father`s nervous to even let you stay on as a Spirit Detective after having endured Chapter Black."

He turned to the window, brushing back the curtains as we stayed silent.

"So you`re firing me?"

He was silent, and I took the long pause as my answer. I had been kidnapped, forced to watch hours of traumatizing footage and lost my job in the same week.

I looked down to the stains on my wrists where the shackles held me to the chair I`d been seated in for the duration of the tape. Yellow and blue, bruising from all of the force I`d put into trying to escape.

"I`ve always known that the human race needed to die. None of that was new to me," He gave me a steady look, probably wondering if his father way right about me.

"Oh, please, everyone knows humanity is ugly. I deserve to die as much as the next blundering idiot."

"And you had that frame of mind before you saw Chapter Black."

"Of course I did. I know plenty of humans that deserve to live, though. I don`t kill unless I have to."

"You always were more merciful than Sensui."

"I just don`t see the point in wasting my energy on demons that aren`t worth it. He`s like a freight train, plowing through anything that isn`t of the Ningenkai. We`ve argued over it before, I guess that`s why he thought I`d be more willing to turn against my own kind."

"I wonder how he`s planning on wiping out the entire human race." He let the curtain fall back over the window, dimming the bedroom.

"It seems that he`s partnered with someone else. I heard another voice when I was trapped in that shed."

His eyebrows furrowed, wondering who Sensui would willingly pair with, as it was a struggle for him to even include me on the missions we were given as a pair. Shinobu was a loner when it came to everything, he even ignored me at school. Our peers didn`t have a clue that we knew each other outside of our classes together.

"Koenma," I tried to land on the subject lightly, sitting back up,

"This is a hunch, but, I think I know who he`s partnered wi-."

I was interrupted by the sound of the compact communicator in Koenma`s pocket

sounding an obnoxious tone. He held up a finger and retrieved the mirror from his pocket and hurriedly exited the room as he flipped it open and answered.

I sighed, laying back down and staring at the ceiling. The screams of pain had subsided from my head, I was trying to mentally block them as best as I could.

I`d watched documentaries on genocide before, I knew how cruel we could be. But if we believed we deserved to die, than why would Chapter Black have bothered any of us in the first place? If we were to try and wipe out the entire human race, then that would make us the Nazi Army.

"I`d be damned if I had to wear that ugly ass swastika." I mumbled, trying to humor myself for the time being.

"You won`t have to worry."

I flung myself out of the bed just as the ball of spirit energy took out my arm. I felt the ligament pull from my body, every nerve screaming bloody murder. I couldn`t think of much else but the pain, and the betrayal I`d felt once again being cornered by my own teammate.

I couldn`t even find words to scold him with as I stared down at my bleeding shoulder. I had no arm, I wouldn`t be able to use my only offense.

Shinobu gripped the footboard of the bed I had been lying in and slid it across the door, blocking the door.

"I was wrong to believe that you wouldn`t talk to Koenma, I should have known he would have you brainwashed beyond the point of no return."

"You`re the only sorry fuck that`s brainwashed, Shinobu!" I shouted through my tears, grasping my bleeding shoulder. I was losing too much blood.

I only cowered into the corner, watching him draw closer. He was so much more intimidating when he was working against me and not at my side.

"I`m sure this isn`t goodbye," Another orb of spirit energy appeared, hovering between his hands only a few feet form me,

"Meet me in the future."

The light hit me and I felt my lungs shriveling in my tiny body. I was screaming, taking breaths for what seemed the first time in a long time. Years, maybe. I reached my arms out in front of me, they were tiny, thicker than I was used to. My fingers looked like sausages. I couldn`t keep them uncurled for too long, as it was too exhausting.

People were cooing over me, and I was wrapped up in a blanket and placed in someone`s arms. I looked up into the green eyes of my mother. She was sweating, tears running down her face, hair matted to her forehead. She was breathing heavily, crying as she clutched me to her.

"Elise," She spoke in a foreign language, English, "-name-Elise Helena Beckett,"

Another blonde now, this time a man. He was tall, thin, with tan skin and grey eyes. I looked up at them through squinted eyes. They were both smiling wide, giggling to themselves with joy. Their words hardly made sense to me because of their language. I had only taken a few English classes in my life. I could make out names and simple words.

"Ellie," Another voice chimed at their side, and a toddler with a blonde bowl cut bob appeared in my line of sight. Her eyes were dark, with long eyelashes and chubby cheeks.

"Jill-sister."